Areas

By year, my timeline consists of two kinds of historical markers: (1) personal events that I designate to be highlights of my life, as well as important but not earth-shaking events worthy of inclusion in an autobiography, in other words, those events making a memorable contribution to who I have become and are becoming; and (2) historical events that have had meaningful impact on me personally. The former documents my memoirs and autobiography in terms of the very personal nature of my life, drawing upon excerpts from correspondence with family, friends, and colleagues. The latter provides the larger context of the times and places in which I lived, from my point of view of course. The latter is the larger stream giving definition to the course of my life. In making my arts based autobiography web site, I have no interest in writing history, but only in giving my content and context in which to view my web site. Overall, the timeline gives background to an intimate range of self portraits. It gives me the surrounding and circumstantial contents of my web site. It brings meaning for me, and I desire, it serves to do the same for my family and interests persons.

If one were to make one huge family and friends album of photographs and memorabilia, this would be my "life album." My life album is organized according to three major periods: my earlier, adult-mid, and later years. My earlier years describe my beginnings, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, from birth through 30 years old, roughly 1942 through 1971. My adult through middle years contain material relevant from 30 through 59 years old, roughly 1972 through 2001. And my latter years comprise content from age 60, roughly 2002, to the present. This trichotomy, where to make such demarcations, is rather arbitrary, but it helps me comprehend the course of my life, as may become more obvious in the study of both my timeline and life album at the junctures (1971-1972 and 2001-2002).

The contents of this section is my body of art made over the course of my life. Two primary studio locations (Walnut Creek, CA and Santa Fe, NM) have given me space to make art. But given my travels and workshop participation, my easy adaptation to multiple locals have afforded me the time and places to generate art. Subsections are paintings and drawings, prints and mixed media, sculpture, my forest of artcards project, art installations, and videos.

With camera as a steady companion, and recognition of its importance as a medium for art making, I have been taking photographs since receiving a Brownie camera from my parents in late childhood. I enjoy taking pictures as an artist, that is, using the camera to frame and shoot various subjects that bring challenges of composition, color, and subject matter, signs and symbols, in the act of picture taking. I enjoy making the implicit explicit and revealing through such subtleties as gradation, shadow, and reflection the manner in which the visual image may communicate the not-so-obvious and the taken-for-granted. From the camera, images imported to the computer have likewise provided endless hours of satisfaction, working the images that I have used in various projects and presentations. Multiple uses of photographs have been made throughout my web site. There are particular sets of photographs I wish to highlight and they provide the subsections of this area of my web site, specifically reflection and shadow, shop fronts, signs, and self portraits.

Though not by education and degree, I have engaged in various forms of literary writing throughout my life, gratefully thanks to the influence of my mother. I have approached these projects as I have with other pursuits of passionate interest. Literary writing has been an integral part of my life. It has been a private and solitary pursuit, not one in which I have engaged in the public domain. I cannot over emphasize its personal therapeutic value for me, particularly transitioning difficult and stressful times in my life. This area of my web site consists of notes to myself, a book of captions for photographs that helped me in 2010 during my recovery from surgery, the beginning of a novel inspired by my reading of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a book of cartoons and poetry written for my daughter, two books of poetry, and miscellaneous writings and poems.

My professional career in academia has spanned my entire adult life. My education and nature of my positions held in academic institutions have come with the expectation I conduct, write, and publish research that makes a contribution to the field and discipline of study in which I received my doctorate degree. What has in fact happened is that I have expanded my horizons to explore various knowledge domains far beyond my parent discipline, domains inclusive of the arts, humanities, and sciences. Central to this quest has been ways we come to know anything of interest to us through processes of human inquiry. Since my work and degree rest upon human inquiry, the research methods principal investigators use in the social, behavioral, and human sciences have circumscribed my research focus throughout my career. In recent decades, I have given more study to research methods in the arts and humanities, and ways they interface, parallel, and complement those of the sciences. Thematically, I think of my scholarly writings as a body of text epitomizing the study of research methodology for human inquiry. From an initial focus in the most traditional of scientific methods during graduate school I have grown by leaps and bounds professionally in my study and understanding of research methods across all the arts, humanities, and sciences. In the world of academia, my professional identity is captured in the phrase "research methodologist" and my specialty is "research methodologies for human inquiry." Rather rare and unusual; albeit, it is my reality and primary passion that has sustained me over the course of my entire professional career. The body of my scholarly writings should be clearly indicative. This area is organized by my books, publications, and presentations.

In 1986, under the tutelage of Martin Allwood, I created a publishing house, licensed in the State of California, called Eagleye Books International, and in the 1990s expanded it under the rubric to Eagleye Publications. The company has been devoted to publishing at least one book each year, though this noble intention became impractical and overly ambitious, given my more passionate commitments to making art and scholarly writing. This chapter in my life has led to several co-publisher books and several other books that are exclusively Eagleye projects. This area of my web site presents my accomplishments in publishing, creating and conducting a publishing business, giving some recognition to each publication.

I am not what you might call a souvenir shopper and collector, but I do like to bring back some kind of memento of my travels. Chiefly, a camera has been a steady companion, as evidenced in other areas of my web site. Taking many pictures and making good use of them in various projects, talks and presentations, and making art have brought me continuous satisfaction. But I have been drawn to create one collection, largely due to convenience and functionality. Typically, I purchase at least one T-shirt from the place in which I spend some days and some significant event occurs. The collection has grown over the years. It fulfills my interest in providing a memorial prompt, a trigger that when I stare at the T-shirt opens my mind to many memories of place and time where I purchased it.

I like to think about my venture into making cinema as "my little movies." My videos were made by means of a variety of technological devices, namely hand held movie cameras and laptop computers. The subject matter involves holiday gatherings with family; recorded by my brother, interviews about my reflections on various periods and events in my life; and the course of my radiation treatments. Other short subjects are included.

There are a handful of persons whose contributions to my life stand head and shoulders above everyone else. My arts based autobiography would be markedly impoverished without some form of recognition given to them. I must give special tribute in gratitude and appreciation. I am very pleased to be able to do this via my web site. They are my mother, Bobbie Frances Collen; my brother, Barry Collen; my sister, Roberta Hayertz; one of my mentors, Martin Allwood; and my Italian brother, Gianfranco Minati.

There are very succinct sayings that have prompted me repeatedly to contemplate more deeply their meaning and relevance to my life. Typically, when I discover such, I write it down and refer back to it from time to time, each time reaping more from its reading, deciding to keep it for yet another reading in the future. Those that fill this area of my web site are those whose readings have survived my scrutiny over the years to conclude they are enduring contributions to who I have become and are becoming.